


Like two straight lines

by that_1_incident



Category: The Stranger (UK TV 2020)
Genre: F/F, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Harlan Coben, Jo is a lesbian and you can pry that out of my cold dead hands, Shock, this is sad I’m sorry, unrequited feelings probably, who can say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27805306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_1_incident/pseuds/that_1_incident
Summary: Jo's been in her line of work long enough to know that the only predictable thing about grief is its unpredictability.
Relationships: Heidi Doyle/Johanna Griffin
Kudos: 2





	Like two straight lines

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Two Straight Lines" by Walking On Cars, a.k.a. the band that did the theme song to the Netflix adaptation of Harlan Coben's "The Stranger"! _Synergy_. 
> 
> Speaking of which, most of the dialogue in this is taken verbatim from that one scene in "The Stranger" episode 4. 
> 
> ALSO Siobhan Finneran and Jennifer Saunders are both _so hot_ don't @ me.

Jo's been in her line of work long enough to know that the only predictable thing about grief is its unpredictability, and she tells Kimberly as much while they're sat on a bench outside the pathologist's office. Losing a parent before finishing uni must be awful enough on its own without adding murder to the mix, so she steels herself for anything from hysterical tears to numb silence but still manages to be thrown for a loop. 

"Why was she planning to fly away with you?" Kimberly's tone is faintly accusatory—judgmental, even—and Jo tries not to read too much into it. "That's so weird."

"Not really," Jo responds calmly, doing her best to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. "We've talked about it for years." 

"Yeah, but why now?"

Jo studies Kimberly's face for a moment and tries not to notice how much the girl looks like her mother. While she doesn't owe Kimberly answers (nor anyone else, for that matter), this _is_ the daughter of her murdered best friend that she's talking to, so she exhales and obliges.

"I'm planning on retiring," she explains, not for the first time, "and... I've left Phillip."

"Yeah, but Mum hadn't," Kimberly shoots back, unfazed. She really is Heidi's daughter. "My mum had my dad, the cafe, the dogs." 

Jo wonders for a stupid, fleeting second whether Kimberly somehow knows her separation from Phillip was approximately two-thirds about being bored and one-third about Heidi, then immediately feels guilty despite not actually having done anything.

"Your mum wanted adventure," she begins, wishing Heidi were here to speak for herself. Wishing Heidi were here, full stop. "Life can be... same-y. She just wanted–"

"Are you a lesbian?"

Jo barks out a laugh. "I'm sorry?"

"Were you and my mum–"

" _No_." Jo's response is more vehement than she intended, and Kimberly's eyes narrow.

"But you loved her, right?"

Although Jo's been out of school for almost half a century, that Shakespeare quote about protesting too much pops into her head unbidden. "Yes, as a friend. As…" She trails off. "Heidi was special."

Kimberly's crying quietly now, and Jo gets the sudden, desperate urge to follow suit.

"I wasn't trying to _steal_ her," she assures Kimberly instead. "I was unhappy and needed a change, and for whatever reason, your mum wanted to take some time too." 

Kimberly doesn't reply, and an old memory gnaws at Jo's conscience. Her first holiday with Heidi was so long ago, before either of them met their husbands, before Kimberly had even been so much as thought of. Benidorm in the late 1970s was the farthest possible cry from their most recent girls' weekend—Jo, Heidi, and Kimberly in a camper van in Wales—and it's embarrassing how much Jo thinks about it, that grimy club on the Spanish coast with the sticky floors and the toilets where Heidi had kissed her.

Jo can put herself back there entirely too easily: the chipped red paint, the cracked mirror, the music thumping so loudly she could almost see the sound waves pulsing through the walls. The way everything seemed to go into soft focus when Heidi, three sheets to the wind, pressed their mouths together and sighed against Jo's lips. In the moment, Jo froze as if Heidi had slapped her, and by the time her brain settled on _Yes, I want this_ , Heidi had already pulled away laughing. In less than a minute, she was on the dance floor with two guys and shouting for Jo to come and join them like nothing had happened.

To Jo, the memory was something akin to a wound that refused to heal, a cut on the inside of her cheek that she couldn't stop tonguing even though it hurt. Surely Heidi only kissed her because they were young and on holiday and more than a little bit toasted; so toasted, in fact, that Heidi had probably forgotten the whole thing the day after, let alone ten, twenty, thirty years down the road. So why couldn't Jo let it go?

Contrary to popular belief, Jo isn't daft. She knows that the two of them jetting off on a spice tour of India in their sixties would hardly have served as a time portal, but the idea of once again having Heidi all to herself in another country had always felt intoxicating. If they'd made it to Thailand, to Zimbabwe, to Jamaica, could she have finally got her answer? Would she know, once and for all, whether anything would've gone differently if she'd returned the kiss instead of hesitating? If she'd slipped her tongue into Heidi's mouth and buried her fingers in her best friend's blonde hair?

"You should look into her finances," Kimberly says suddenly, apropos of nothing Jo can pinpoint, and the broken silence jolts her unceremoniously back to the present. She's sitting outside the pathologist's office with Heidi's daughter, she reminds herself. And Heidi—Heidi's dead.


End file.
